A little torn on how I feel about this book. It had some things I just loved, but some of it just felt off. The story is started off with 10 year old Victoria secretly writing to her neighbor, Tom. He found her journal hidden outside, so he began the correspondence by teasing her. He tells her he is the cooks son and they write in this journal back and forth until they are 16. They share all their secrets and get to know each other well although they never actually meet. Her parents have aspirations of her and her 2 sisters marrying into peerage. her family is wealthy but are not nobility, her father is a banker and they are not accepted in society. Victoria is shy and does not wish to mingle in society or marry. When her father commits suicide and leaves the family in financial ruins, she and her sisters do what they must to survive. The sisters find governess and companion situations while Victoria stays home to care for her Mother. She decides to go next door to seek out Tom to see if he will marry her. ( This part made no sense to me, he was a cooks son so how could he financially help her?) She finds out that Tom is actually a Viscount and his name is David Thurlow. David wants no part of the ton as they have scorned him over scandals that were all his fathers doing. He is a business man heavily involved with the rail roads and tries to be perfect without scandal to help clear his family name. He was turned down by two peers that he wanted to marry, yet still wishes to marry as he needs someone to run the house and provide an heir. He decides to marry Victoria to benefit both of them. So yes, they marry. After the journal entries and then Victoria finding out who he actually is, well it just gets pretty boring. For the whole middle of the book, every-night he goes to her and will kiss her, they slowly go just a bit farther even though in their thoughts they both wanted to ravish each other... It wasn't even sexual tension cause the next day they were just cold but more towards civil to each other. booooring yawn.. The last third of the book, she gets all social for his sake and starts pushing him into social events and she becomes like the belle of the ball, even though she is shy and hates this stuff, it was confusing that she just switched like that. The story wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that entertaining. I will try the next and see if the series gets better.